THE TICKER

Murdoch would make Web site free

November 14, 2007|By MarketWatch

Rupert Murdoch said Tuesday that he expects to make the Wall Street Journal's online edition a free Web site, moving away from the paid-subscription model it has successfully employed since its inception in 1996.

Speaking to Australian investors in Adelaide, the chairman of News Corp., which is in a deal to acquire the Journal's parent, Dow Jones & Co., for $5.6 billion, said that making the paper's online content free would draw "large numbers" of big-money advertisers.

In the third quarter, WSJ.com had 989,000 paid subscribers, an increase of 25.5 percent from the year-ago number.

But Murdoch said that instead of boasting 1 million subscribers, a free version of the online newspaper could draw "10 million to 15 million" readers.